Aaron Albert Mossell II was the first African-American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 Law School and the father of Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, born Sarah Tanner Mossell , was the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D...

.

Life and career

Aaron Albert Mossell II was born in Hamilton, Canada in 1863, the youngest of six children. His parents had moved with their first three children from Maryland to Hamilton

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

 in the 1850s to escape the racial discrimination in the United States.

His father Aaron Albert Mossell I (b. 1824), the grandson of slaves, became a brickmaker and in Hamilton went to school to learn to read and write. His mother Eliza Bowers was a free woman

Free people of color

A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...

 from Baltimore whose family had been deported to Trinidad

Trinidad

Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

 when she was a child. She returned later and met Mossell. By 1870 the family had returned to the United States and lived in Lockport

Lockport (city), New York

Lockport is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 21,165 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from a set of Erie canal locks within the city. Lockport is the county seat of Niagara County and is surrounded by the town of Lockport...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

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Aaron Mossell II graduated from Lincoln University

Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)

Lincoln University is the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. It is located near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university also hosts a Center for Graduate Studies in the City of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides...

. He earned his law degree at the University of Pennsylvania Law School

University of Pennsylvania Law School

The University of Pennsylvania Law School, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania. A member of the Ivy League, it is among the oldest and most selective law schools in the nation. It is currently ranked 7th overall by U.S. News & World Report,...

 in 1888 as the first African American to graduate.

Mossell practiced law with two African-American partners in offices in the Witherspoon Building. He was solicitor of the Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...

 Memorial Hospital, where his brother Nathan was medical director. He was said to have defended some African-American men after the racial riots of 1917-1919 in Philadelphia.

Marriage and family

Mossell married Mary Louisa Tanner in Philadelphia. They had three children. Aaron Albert Tanner III (1893-1059) became a pharmacist in Philadelphia. Elizabeth Mossell Anderson (1894-1975) became Dean of Women at Virginia State College and later at Wilberforce University

Wilberforce University

Wilberforce University is a private, coed, liberal arts historically black university located in Wilberforce, Ohio. Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans...

 in Ohio. Sadie Tanner Mossell

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, born Sarah Tanner Mossell , was the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D...

 (1898-1985), also graduated from Penn and served as an editor of the Law Review., became a practicing lawyer, Assistant City Solicitor and activist on civil rights issues

Mossell separated from his wife and family when Sadie was about a year old, and the couple eventually divorced. Later he moved to Cardiff, Wales, where he was living by the 1930s and remained the rest of his life. He died on February 1, 1951.